The Aggressive (Book 1 of the Titanwar saga): A science fiction thriller

by Gem Jackson

  “This isn’t right. Who has a brig in their med unit? Fuck. I don’t like this.”

  “Thank you for your analysis,” said Torren. “And this is based on your extensive experience studying the layout of battleships is it?”

  “What are you talking about? It’s weird. That was a big medical unit we just passed through, hell, it was a small hospital.”

  “What’s your point?” asked Torren.

  “Well, that’s a big med unit, and this is a small brig. Where’s the sense in that? It’s not efficient. A medical bay a tenth of that size should be attached to a brig. This isn’t a brig with a medical bay, it’s more like a medical bay with a brig. Do you see the difference? It doesn’t make sense. That’s all I’m saying.” Hail waved Torren away as she finished.

  “Very articulate. Thank you.”

  “She’s right,” said Sleet. “It’s strange.”

  That put an end to the conversation and silence settled over group. Leon noticed Sleet and Ardbeg occupied opposing ends of the cell. That wasn’t a good sign either. Were they annoyed with one another?

  “Outta the way.” Torren shoved him to one side.

  Rubbing his shoulder, Leon shifted away from the Murpo and gazed around the cell. It was about 10 feet long and three feet wide. There were three solid walls, some sort of composite he presumed, coated with pristine white paint. The front of the cell was made up of a stiff form of chain-link, only there wasn’t an inch of give. Every so often Hail would heave against the chain-link or try to pull it apart. She had no success. There was a heavy door securing the porthole through which they had entered and another at the far end of the walkway. Above each of the doors were two black, glass panels set into the wall, a large one and a smaller one above. Presumably one of the two contained monitoring equipment. If the opposing side was anything to go by, their cell was the first of three. Leon could see into the cell opposite and the one next to that, in the middle of the other row. They were empty.

  “Well? Say something then.” It was Sleet. Leon turned to see her squaring up to Ardbeg, who had assumed a meditative pose, sitting on the floor. “What do we do? What’s the plan now? Speak for fuck's sake, oh profound oracle.”

  Ardbeg opened his mouth but said nothing. He looked up at Sleet and then to the others, mouth agape. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?”

  “It shouldn’t have happened like this. I don’t know where it came from? It wasn’t there and then… Then it was. I don’t know.”

  “What are you talking about, Ardbeg?” asked Torren.

  “The ship. It just appeared. It shouldn’t have happened.”

  Sleet abruptly turned away. “Jesus, man, you’re making even less sense than usual.”

  “He’s finally broken, Sleet. I said it would happen. I said it,” Torren shook his head ruefully.

  “Sir,” Leon shuffled over to the pirate. “I mean, Mr Ardbeg, sorry, say that again. It just appeared?”

  “It just appeared,” repeated Ardbeg, now looking at the floor. Leon had to lean in to hear him.

  “Yeah, that. What do you mean? Did it evade the sensors? Was it travelling too quickly?”

  “No, not too quick. It just appeared. One second it wasn’t there. The next it was, it was on top of us. Next to us.” Ardbeg looked up at Leon with wide, hazelnut eyes. “You see?”

  “So you’re saying it jumped next to us? It T-jumped next to us?” asked Leon.

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit,” interjected Torren. “You can’t jump that accurately. He made a mistake.”

  “There was no mistake,” shouted Ardbeg. “We’ve never got this wrong before. Never.”

  “He’s right about that,” said Sleet. “Anyway, when did you get so animated Starflight? Woken up, have we?” Leon felt himself flush under the attention.

  “It’s a piloting thing. I know about that,” Leon trailed off.

  “Speak up then. Why the interest?” asked Sleet.

  “I was just thinking,” Leon addressed Sleet but felt the others listening attentively. He was suddenly very aware of his own voice. It felt too loud. “It was probably the distress signal that we broadcast before you boarded that’s attracted them,” Sleet nodded in agreement. “You would have known we’d do that though, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s a fairly safe assumption when you’re taking a ship.”

  “So, he’s saying,” Leon gestured at Ardbeg, “that you swept for ships that could intercept within a given timeframe. And there weren’t any. Correct?”

  “Okay, I’m following. So what?”

  “I just think it’s interesting,” said Leon. The room visibly deflated. “What if he’s right? What if it did just jump in? That would be something completely new. A new jump engine.”

  “Starflight, think.” Torren put a hand firmly on Leon’s shoulder. “It’s this simple. What’s more likely? That he fucked up?”

  “I didn’t fuck up,” muttered Ardbeg.

  “Or that this ship has a brand new, unheard of, revolutionary jump engine?”

  “I don’t know,” said Leon. “Do you think he messed up?”

  Torren turned his head sternly towards Ardbeg. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Further argument was cut short as the porthole door crashed open. One after another a sequence of armed security personnel, white uniformed medics and officers entered. Leon stared at the security personnel. There were two of them. Something pricked his consciousness. They were familiar.

  “The guns,” he whispered. Sleet looked at him, curious. “They’ve got the same guns as the security forces back on Titan.” Saying it out loud made it sound absurd. Titan didn’t have a fleet. It had no ships of its own. Titan was APSA.

  He refocused on the new arrivals. Aside from the security personnel, there were three medics and two officers. He didn’t recognise the uniforms precisely, but they were obviously modelled on the APSA design. If the four stripes one of the officers wore on his epaulets was anything to go by, he was the captain. The other wore the twin stripes of a lieutenant.

  “This one,” said the officer Leon thought of as the Captain. His voice bore the clipped polish of the upper class. He pointed at Ardbeg. “He is the pirate leader?”

  “Yes, Captain,” responded the lieutenant.

  “Good. Use him first.” He looked the rest of them up and down as chaos erupted in the holding cell. Sleet, Torren and most of the others shouted at the Captain. The lieutenant who had spoken before raised an arm and the armed security detail raised their rifles up to the cell and assumed a firing pose.

  “Stand down!” shouted one of them. “Be silent and stand down!”

  It took a moment, but one by one they settled. The guards remained poised, weapons braced against their shoulders.

  “That one, the pilot,” the captain pointed to Murray. “Don’t use him. He’s military. Interrogation only.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And this one,” the Captain leaned towards Leon and his eye caught the insignia on Leon’s chest. “Starflight? That’s a civilian company. You’re a non-military pilot?” If it was possible to stutter a nod, Leon managed it. “Interesting. Very interesting,” the Captain continued thoughtfully. “Good. Don’t use him. In fact, separate him. Put him there, in the opposite cell. He stays intact. Do you understand?” The others nodded emphatically. “I will be interrogating him myself. He is to be in a good frame of mind for our conversation, is that clear?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Okay, that will be all. Begin.” At that, the Captain strode away, and the lieutenant nodded to the medics.

  “Unlock, cell four,” said the lieutenant directing his voice to the ceiling. In a smooth practiced motion, one of the security guards moved to cover the wire door as it swung outwards while the other shouldered their weapon and entered, grabbing Ardbeg roughly by the arm and yanking him to his feet. Ardbeg dwarfed his armoured assailant. The medics gently handcuffed his hands behind his wai
st.

  “Unlock, cell one.” The guard, now free of Ardbeg, gripped Leon and hauled him out of the cell. He looked at Sleet helplessly. Her expression was blank. Leon stumbled through the open gate of the opposing cell.

  “Lock, cell four. Lock, cell one,” shouted the lieutenant. The doors swung back into place, with the sharp clang of metal on metal.

  “Take this one to medical assessment bay two,” the lieutenant addressed the medics. “They’re expecting him.” One after another they marched out. Ardbeg and Sleet held each other's gaze until the medics pushed him, head down, through the porthole. The heavy metal door closed behind them.

  After they took Ardbeg, nobody spoke for a while. Leon hunkered down into the corner of his cell, facing the locked mesh door.

  How had it come to this? He thought about the ship he was on. He didn’t know its name. He didn’t know its alignment. He didn’t even know what deck he was on. A deck with a prison. And a hospital. It smelled like a hospital. Disinfectant. It could be worse. Given it was a brig, it could smell a lot worse. He breathed deeply and felt the bleach in the air burn his nostrils. He surveyed the room from his new perspective. Something caught his eye in the cell adjacent to where the others were being held. It was a pair of feet. Two slippered feet poked out just beyond the wall separating the two cells. There was someone trying to stay hidden in the corner.

  “Hey!” Leon shouted. “Hey you. Where are we?”

  “What’s that, Starflight?” asked Hail. “What’re you doing?”

  Leon addressed Hail briefly, “There’s someone in the cell next to you. Hey you, where are we?”

  Silence.

  Hail and the others shouted and banged on their cell wall. The solid partition absorbed most of the force, leaving a rather disappointing series of low thuds amongst the yelling, but the effect was sufficient to make the feet withdraw out of sight.

  “I know you’re there, I just saw you move,” said Leon.

  “Go away. Leave me alone.” It was another Titan accent. It was male and upset. They sounded panicky and scared. Leon gestured at the others to stop banging and shouting.

  “It’s okay, we’ll stop. We just want to know where we are. Can you at least tell us that and we’ll leave you alone.” Leon waited. The seconds dripped by slowly. Ten seconds, twenty, then just as he was about to give up a figure crept to the front of the cell. Leon pressed his back against the wall and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Oh Lord,” he spoke softly, “What happened to you?” The man before him was a vision of pain. He wore hospital attire, soft slippers and a thin cream gown, mottled with brown spots across his torso where blood had seeped through from beneath. His left arm had been amputated above the elbow, the end of which remained heavily bandaged. His face had been burned and was struggling to heal. It was a patchwork of red, raw flesh, yellowing at the edges. More bandages covered his eyes, leaving him without sight. Irregular patches of matted hair stuck to angry, exposed sores on his scalp.

  In spite of all of this, he split a wide grin as he took hold of the mesh with his remaining hand and laughed. It was a rough, hacking sound from deep in his chest.

  “Welcome friends. Welcome to On-board Medical Training Unit Two.”

  “What the fuck?” exclaimed Hail.

  “You wanted to know where you are?” the man continued, “You’re in On-board Medical Training Unit Two. It’s what they’re calling hell these days.” He laughed to himself again, wincing as he did so. “You’re aboard the Cronus. You’ve been consumed. Eaten. You’re being digested as we speak.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Leon. “What happened to you? How did you get hurt?”

  “I’m a dead man walking. That’s all. And this?“ he surveyed his broken body. “It’s what they do here. What they’re doing to your friend. We’re lab rats, you see? We’re test subjects.” His voice cracked, half way between crying out in pain and anger. “They’re expecting a war. The Captain, he was here a moment ago, yes? Captain Motion. He’s preparing for war. So he trains his crew. The gunners gun. The navigators navigate. And the medics? Well, they must medicate. Do you understand? But who do they medicate? He trains them for treating the wounded. Wounded by war. But the war isn’t here yet, so they treat us. They treat me and now they will treat you too. They will be treating your friend soon, yes they will. But first they must hurt him. They hurt me. They will hurt you too. Hurt us so they can treat us.”

  “What are they going to do to Ardbeg? Are they going to kill him?” asked Sleet.

  “Kill him? No. Not straight away. That’s inefficient. You’ll see what happens. Is the screen on? Has it started yet? I used to see myself.”

  Leon looked up to the black panels above the far door. The larger of the two panels had in fact switched on and was displaying a colour feed. The feed showed what appeared to be an airlock. Figures were busy. It took a moment to discern what was going on but as each of them did so gasps, curses and low cries echoed around the brig. The screen showed a bundle of figures securing Ardbeg behind a large block.

  “What’s that?” asked Hail.

  “It’s a fireblock,” responded Leon. “They’re solid, reinforced blocks used in large vessels when they expect to be boarded. They provide cover for defending marines or drones.”

  “Why are they tying him to that?” Hail continued.

  “Oh fuck, no,” said Sleet. “He doesn’t deserve that.” Hail looked from person to person, mystified. Eventually Torren took pity and explained. Leon didn’t know exactly how Torren expressed it, but he did as Hail’s face dropped and she went silent. They were going to inflict on Ardbeg the kind of injuries they expected people to suffer if they were being boarded.

  The burned prisoner laughed again. “Nobody deserves it! Do you think I deserved it? Of course not. I was insubordinate, that’s all. I got into a fight with my lieutenant, that’s all. And this is what I get? Do you think there’s any justice here? I told you, this is hell.”

  On the screen the huddle of figures dispersed, leaving Ardbeg to struggle in vain, pulling away from the fireblock. The screen flashed once, then again. Each flash was accompanied by a deep, thud that reverberated around the room. The burned prisoner cried out and threw himself back into the corner of his cell. Leon looked back at the screen. As the image resolved itself back into a discernible picture, all that could be heard was the desperate crying of the prisoner opposite.

  Then they saw. Ardbeg splayed out. Blood pooled beneath him. Fires burned around him. His body heaved. Was he trying to breathe? Was he conscious? Unfamiliar figures scrambled into view, surrounding Ardbeg. Medics. Equipment was unpacked. One began administering CPR while others busied themselves with drugs and a stretcher.

  Leon stumbled back as far from the screen as he could manage. Without warning, the porthole opened. The lieutenant from earlier appeared with the two security guards. Everyone shrank back.

  “He wants this one. Take him through to room one.” They approached Leon.

  He wrapped his arms around his head and started to cry. He heard the door swung open and the security guard step in. This wasn’t happening.

  “No. I don’t want to. Please! I don’t want to go.”

  They took his anyway. He expected the others to shout for him. To cry out for him. To do something. They watched him being dragged out in silence. Just as with Ardbeg, Sleet held his gaze as they pulled him away.

  The interrogation room wasn’t far away. He was dragged through the medical unit into a side room. It was about as nondescript as any he had come across. The walls, floor and ceiling were a dull metallic grey. There was a single door through which he had entered, it was grey metal, and nothing else. There was no security camera, no recording device, no one-way viewing window. They handcuffed him to a metal chair on one side of a secure table.

  After security left, he sat for a short while, occasionally testing his restraints, before the Captain swept in. Captain Motion. The name was familiar. He sat dow
n opposite Leon and stole a look at him. For the most part he looked like any other senior officer—in his forties, smartly dressed with dark hair, speckled with flecks of grey. What set him apart were his eyes. They were like nothing Leon had ever seen before; they were bright blue with flashes of yellow, like a ring of fire in a blue sky. He spun a cheap plastic pen around his thumb. Leon had always wanted to be able to spin a pen like that. The Captain saw Leon staring at his hand and set the pen down onto the table. He cleared his throat.

  “You,” he said, “name?”

  “Erm, Wood, sir. Leon Wood. Everyone calls me Starflight, sir.”

  “Because of your badge. Yes, I understand. Very humorous.” The Captain’s tone was not in the slightest bit amused. His voice was deep and gravelled, like a heavy blade being dragged across stone.

  “How did you come to be in the company of those criminals through there?” He gestured through the wall.

  “They captured my ship, sir. I issued a distress signal. I thought that was how you found me?” It was only a half lie. He didn’t trust this man. He didn’t feel right about anything on this ship, and so telling the whole truth didn’t strike him as the best idea.

  The Captain exhaled and stretched his arms across the table. “Mr Wood, you are correct in that assumption. Tell me, who is your employer?”

  “Starflight. It’s on the badge, sir.” Leon made a pained expression, which he hoped would be interpreted as him trying not to be clever, despite the flippant response.

  “Where is the company based?” continued the Captain.

  “I don’t know. They employed me around Earth,” said Leon. “This is my first proper job. I’m not long qualified.”

  “I can see that. What were you doing before you were a commercial pilot? It’s unusual for someone from Titan, someone so young at least, to be in such a position.”

  “Yes sir, I realise that. I applied to work for APSA originally. They brought me from Titan to train around Earth. I didn’t last very long though. I got a lot of stick for, you know, where I’m from. So I washed out. I quit. Starflight picked me up as I had most of my pilot training by that point.” Leon looked down at the table. He hoped that the colour flushing his cheeks indicated shame rather than betraying his untruths. Well, half -truths anyway. He remembered a line from series two of Dark! Hard! Cold!, ‘wrap lies in truth to make them easier to swallow’. The Captain appeared to be swallowing them.